Sony’s CinemaCon presentation kicked off Monday evening in Las Vegas with a little help from Mike Lowrey and Marcus Bennett.
The leads of the Bad Boys franchise — played respectively by Will Smith and Martin Lawrence — added some star power to the festivities, even if it happened to be remote via a recorded message from the set.
“Wassup, CinemaCon!” Smith said after he and Lawrence exited a black Porsche against the backdrop of a row of production trailers. “The Bad Boys back in the building. We on set and we are so sorry we couldn’t be there with you.”
Smith went on to say that they just started shooting as he was briefly interrupted by his co-star who requested that he correct the intro by saying that they are, in fact, not sorry that they couldn’t be inside the Colosseum tonight. “We had to be here, Will,” Lawrence noted, to which Smith said that he had seen stars like Tom Hanks do these types of introductions and you’re always instructed to offer apologies. “It makes the people feel good,” he quipped. But, Lawrence countered, “This is a sophisticated crowd, tell them the truth.”
With that, Smith got his story straight. “We glad we not there, cuz we here and they paying us to be here, so we are happy that we here and not there.”
“Bad Boys 4 is coming. Back in the saddle. We hype, we excited,” Smith concluded, adding that they are in their fourth week of filming. He then introduced Sony Pictures Motion Picture Group president Josh Greenstein, whom he called “the bad boy” of Sony Pictures Entertainment. “That’s a little embarrassing,” Greenstein said before getting serious. “We’re so happy to have the Bad Boys back in action again.”
As previously reported, Smith and Lawrence are teaming up once again for Columbia Pictures in Bad Boys 4, in an installment that reunites them with filmmaking duo Adil El Arbi and Bilall Fallah who last directed them in 2020’s Bad Boys for Life – a hit that earned $426 million in its global box office haul.
Though the untitled film is far from finished — it has been shooting on location in Atlanta and does not yet have a release date — Sony teased it as part of the studio’s anticipated slate, which Greenstein said is packed with “23 films this calendar year alone.”
It finds Smith and Lawrence reprising their roles as Mike Lowrey and Marcus Burnett, respectively, and starring alongside Vanessa Hudgens, Alexander Ludwig, Paola Núnez and Eric Dane. El Arbi and Fallah are directing from a script penned by Chris Bremner. Smith, Jerry Bruckheimer, Doug Belgrad and Chad Oman are producing with a roster of executive producers that includes Lawrence, James Lassiter, Mike Stenson, Barry Waldman and Jon Mone.
Lawrence talked up the film just days ago in an interview during his Hollywood Walk of Fame ceremony. “It has the chance to be the best one of them all and everybody’s doing their thing,” he told Entertainment Tonight. “We got a lot of the team back from the last one. Big Willie’s doing his thing as always and so focused and, yeah, it has the chance to be the biggest one.”
It will surely have a lot of eyes on it as well, it marks the first feature from El Arbi and Fallah after their Batgirl film was shelved by Warner Bros. Discovery. Meanwhile, Smith too continues to work his way back from controversy in the wake of last year’s Oscar slap.
CinemaCon, the official convention of the National Association of Theatre Owners, is being held inside Caesars Palace in Las Vegas from April 24-27.
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